he'll come home and marry me
by FigureofDismay
Summary: Red and Liz go undercover as a married criminal socialite couple to lure the trust of a deeply paranoid man who has information Red desperately needs to fight his enemies. In other words, tropey, pining goodness set in a vague S2 AU. Lizzington. Dedicated to my fellow shippers who are sailing in rough waters, and to LovelyLittleFreckle especially.
1. the photographs

A bit of fluffy indulgence to sooth the soul. Expect chapters of about this length at regular intervals. In the words of my dear beta, LovelyLittleFreckle, this is more like a series of petit fours for your delectation. Title from an "old english ballad" invented for the Victorian stage, which rose to great popularity for a while, and is meant (largely) ironically. It's reminded me of a Certain Person for quite a while ;)

 _My Johnny was a shoemaker and dearly he loved me  
_ _My Johnny was a shoemaker but now he's gone to sea  
With pitch and tar to soil his hands  
And to sail across the sea, stormy sea  
And sail across the stormy sea_

 _His jacket was a deep sky blue and curly was his hair_  
 _His jacket was a deep sky blue, it was, I do declare_  
 _For to reive the topsails up against the mast_  
 _And to sail across the sea, stormy sea_  
 _And sail across the stormy sea_

 _Some day he'll be a captain bold with a brave and a gallant crew_  
 _Some day he'll be a captain bold with a sword and spyglass too_  
 _And when he has a gallant captain's sword_  
 _He'll come home and marry me, marry me_  
 _He'll come home and marry me_

* * *

The idea of the charade had been Red's, of course, but the weary, guilt-sick look on his face when he'd put the proposal before had robbed her of the will to put on a show of anger and dismay. They would have to be married, or rather, they would have to appear to be married, for at least a good few weeks while attracting the attention of their mark, and then for another who knew how long while waiting in hope for this contact to whisk them away to his remote compound where he kept encrypted secret servers full of information that they desperately needed.

She wasn't sure at first why he'd insisted on marriage, rather than the slightly simpler part of serious girlfriend, or even kept woman, if it came to it. After a few hours of badgering him about it, Red admitted with a measure of chagrin that he'd had more than one of his more publicly known romantic relationships fall apart amidst scandal and his ex declare her intention to make the split by selling him out to either a convenient enemy or to law enforcement. Only the legal binding and the promise of spousal privilege would grant her a secure position at Red's side for the duration, and she had no intention of letting him go alone.

Faking a marriage was a little more work that she anticipated though. It took more than a pair of rings and a willingness to endure. Or perhaps it just took more willingness to endure than she had entirely accounted for when agreeing to the plan.

"It's just a grift, Lizzy," he'd said gently, as if to placate her, though she'd already agreed by that time and she wasn't sure why he kept trying to argue his case. She realized later that she should have taken that as a warning, as gentle and kind a warning as he could give.

* * *

They started with the wedding photographs, to set upon the pre-war mantle of their beautiful penthouse on the Upper East Side. The origins and provenance of the penthouse were completely opaque to her, but she'd stopped questioning these things somewhere along the way. In any case, she wasn't living there yet, she was being put up in a nice hotel where Red wasn't staying. If he was staying at the penthouse or somewhere else she had no idea, and she was too busy being pampered within an inch of her life to care either way.

The dress arrived early in the morning, delivered by a kid in a hotel uniform who quickly fled from her glower. All the pampering had put her into a perversely horrible mood.

The thing she unwrapped from its bed of shell pink tissue paper was made of silk charmeuse the color of old ivory or pale sand and so smooth it nearly slipped through her fingers as she held it up. It wasn't a structured confection of a dress, the way her first wedding dress was. Her real wedding dress. The one for her real marriage to a fake man, as opposed to this one for her fake marriage to a real man. Her brain gave up parsing the issue and simply looked at the dress.

It was simple and beautiful and draped and set in with nearly invisible gores in a way that was both modern and sweetly deco. It was unadorned, it's beauty came from the dress-maker's skill at patterning alone, no frills and no fuss. Sophisticated, she thought, not for a girl dressing up but for a woman who could carry it off.

It fit well, but not so impeccably as to unsettle her. This was reassuring, she decided, after a half-second's thought. She took it off again when her standing breakfast order arrived, and answered the door in the giant fluffy hotel robe, unaccountably unwilling to be seen trying it on.

* * *

It was a beautiful day, balmy and warm and brilliantly sunny, only the very barest breath of autumn in the air though it was the middle of September. It could as well stand for a warm spring day, which was when their wedding was supposed to have been. Red picked her up in one of his sleek town cars shortly after breakfast and they drove out to Yonkers to that beautiful, half-decrepit mansion where they'd stayed the night Berlin disappeared. They would have their wedding pictures there. Perhaps out on the grounds if the leaves hadn't turned yet in the lingering summer warmth, or in the long gallery which had the faded grandeur of a formal Edwardian salon. Red said that the photographer would be equipped for both.

Traveling in cars with Red was familiar enough and comfortable enough that it didn't occur to her to be nervous about the coming performance until they were climbing out of the car on sweeping front drive and being swarmed by Red's coterie of people waiting to dance attendance. She looked at Red in hopes that he would put them off for a few minutes while she got her feet under her, but he seemed happy enough to begin at once. He came and walked beside her, making introductions and guiding her into the house with a gentle hand on her back. He was smiling that bland, genial smile that always covered a multitude of sins and she wondered what in particular it hid this time.

The suite of rooms on the third floor that had once belonged to the lady of the house were still in good condition, although long ago denuded of furnishings. That was where the gaggle of stylists had set up camp with their own supplies, and lead her up the stairs straight away. She'd cast a last look at Red over her shoulder, who was talking animatedly photographer and showed no signs of following her, as she climbed the grand marble stair and felt that his apparent detachment over this ruse was admirable.

Liz was settled in a chair while her makeup was done and her hair was styled. The three women who hovered around her made polite small talk with her in perfect english but spoke to each other in some rapid slavic language. A delicate, filagreed wisp of a bridal circlet was pinned into her hair and she was handed a box with a pair long pearl drops to put in her ears. Her bridal gown was brought over at last, still warm and clammy from it's careful steaming and preening, and she was left alone to dress.

There was a long mirror stood up against the wall, and the woman reflected in it was a proud, pale stranger. It was herself, but amplified, refined. Herself as she might have been if she'd been born to a family such as the one who'd owned the mansion in it's heyday, not a government employee raised in a midwestern suburb. She wondered who had designed this look for her, if it had been Red, or one of the capable Baltic women, or someone else. She wondered how much all of this had cost, and how many favors were traded. She wondered who was going to make use of the dress and the jewelry when she was done playing dress-up.

She lifted her chin and looked this way and that to see the earrings swing. She shifted her shoulders to see how well the soft fabric moved with her. The shoes pinched abominably, for which she was grateful. Otherwise she might have liked the picture presented a little too well.

"Well," she said to her reflection, "this is going to be interesting."

* * *

Red was in costume by the time she saw him again, or rather another of his fine suits, this one better matched to her dress. He looked nice, the warm, pale grey of it complimented his complexion. But Red didn't wear any suit that didn't set him off to his best advantage, and she was fairly sure it wasn't even a new one. She was strangely disappointed that he wasn't as transformed as she had been, but she supposed the point of this exercise was to fit her into his world, nothing more, nothing less.

She'd taken the grand staircase slowly in deference to the miserable shoes. She'd tried very hard not to think about all the cliched movie scenes where the heroine descends in all her finery and renders her love interest speechless, and failed. She'd tried very hard not to take it personally when Red wasn't there to meet her, and that when she did find him, holding court with Dembe and a few of the photographer's assistants, he only looked at her for a long while with a strange stiff expression and called her over in a brisk tone.

Dembe looked impressed though. He smiled warmly at her over Red's shoulder. Her mood rose considerably.

The only real tense moment came when Red gave to her the rings. He stopped her from following the little crowd into the half-wild garden so that they stood alone in the long, echoing salon with its musty, dry wood smell. He looked resplendent in golden afternoon light, his skin still tanned from summer travels he hadn't explained and his eyes bright and vivid with intent. The twitch of his mouth was nervous though, and she braced herself for something she wouldn't like.

"I think you will need these, Lizzy," he said, and opened his hand so that she could see the rings he had chosen for her resting on his palm.

"That's… really a lot of diamond on that ring," she said, skeptical and strangely reluctant to reach for the ostentatious thing. "Whose taste is this supposed to indicate, anyway? Am I supposed to want to wear it, or are you supposed to want me to be seen wearing it?"

"We've been over this. The idea isn't to play a character so much as to play a version of yourself who…would condescend to marry a figure such as myself," he said, with a wincing smile of apology, "But surely but both versions of yourself know the virtue of making a show, when necessary."

She took the ring. It was by no means ugly or crass, beyond the fact that it was large and made with diamonds, a combination that she always found suspect in taste. The center stone was round and as clear and colorless as deep arctic ice. The shoulders were set with smaller diamonds in deco style cuts, narrow bars and rounded triangles, put together in shapes rather like leaves. It was heavy as she held it and even heavier when she slid it on. The narrow wedding band followed. She twisted them experimentally and found the fit good enough but a little loose.

"They're vintage pieces," he assured her, "and their history is entirely clean."

"I didn't think otherwise, Red," she said softly. "Still. I think the band is enough for most of the time, don't you?"

"There will be dinners, galas. I'll be taking you on a grand whirlwind social tour with the best and the brightest, Lizzy. It's better to be prepared."

"Will you be wearing a ring, too?" she asked, teasing, smirking at him.

He held up his left hand wordlessly to show the simple, heavy band he already wore. He looked apologetic about that too. Her smile froze and drifted away.

* * *

The actual business of the pictures passed quickly and easily. She was too used to appearing on Red's arm to balk at smiling for the camera. It was a little more awkward when they were joined by Dembe and Kate Kaplan, also dressed in false finery, for pictures of the pretend wedding party. Dougan Wallis knew Red well enough to know which of his companions would be included in a real wedding, he reminded her, his hand warm where it cupped her waist.

They all smiled at the photographer and his assistants holding reflectors aloft. Half an hour or less of posing in front of the overgrown arbor of late blooming roses and trying not to be flustered by the bees hovering around the same flowers. Then they were done. Red drifted off to talk with Kaplan and Liz went off back inside to be rid of her grand look.

When she was back in her own clothes, her hair freed of its pins and brushed out, she felt better. She was angry, she realized, about the ridiculousness of the whole production. About how casual and unaffected by it Red seemed. She was also angry about how he had seemingly decided that he had burdened her with this project, and was mincing his way through, making amends before she'd even had a chance to decide if she was, in fact, burdened or offended.

His behavior seemed preemptive and even petty. She was offended by how little faith he seemed to have in her ability to separate her personal tolerance for him from her ability to do her job. Or to do _a_ job, anyway, since this all seemed so very far from the rightful purview of the FBI. Ressler had had a pretty spectacular tantrum, the briefing when she and Red brought forward Red's plan. Cooper had agreed, in the end, but he too had looked at Liz with apology and pity. She was fed up with all of them.

Being annoyed energized her though. It woke her from the uncertain, dreamlike feeling that seemed to fog her preparation for being under cover. They couldn't afford for her to by fuzzy headed or careless. Only days left, and then they would be working without a net. As pretty and frivolous as the trimmings of this project seemed, it was Red's very future that was at stake.


	2. the wardrobe

Red had mentioned something about a full wardrobe for her month or two as his wife. They would be becoming a fixture in social circle in which Red had been a well known and eccentric fixture before disappearing inexplicably, when he'd turned himself in. They would be seeing enough of the same people that she would need more than a couple outfits in a carryall to be comfortable and unremarkable.

She'd actually been looking forward to that part. She liked clothes, even if she struggled a little with color and print she knew how to stick to neutrals and look sleek and fashionable. She'd anticipated an orgy of shopping, something out of Pretty Woman where she could spend piles of Red's money on clothes and shoes and tip taxis outrageously as a kind of revenge for his dismissive behavior, and for all the times he'd made little comments about the way she dressed. At least then his ill-gotten gains would be heading in some legitimate direction. She viewed the prospect with some glee.

But in the end she didn't get to _go_ shopping. The shopping came to her. The day after the wedding pictures she was besieged by clothing. Some of it was wheeled in on hanging racks and some of it was carried up in shopping bags. A perfusion of shoe boxes came from somewhere, she never saw where, and didn't see how they went away again. There was a suitcase full of handbags to choose from, another with various accessories. A three-way mirror was brought in and stood up in the corner. Her large room was filled up, every surface covered, and and the floor was soon littered with wads of tissue paper and discarded packaging and big, rustling boutique bags, and had to pick her way through a narrow path between the bathroom to change and the big mirror. The air was thick with the smells of new silk and new cotton and linen and faint whiffs of different fine perfumes. She was soon intensely claustrophobic.

It came with a pair of stylists to guide her choices, a chic and artfully dishevelled pair with intimidatingly knowing expressions. Jeanne was a very tall, thin, sharp faced French woman with dyed black hair that floated about her head in a cloud of fine curls, her high forehead softened by short, flat-ironed bangs. Rhys was a delicate man with a permanently dreamy expression and a faint Scottish accent who came about up to the Jeanne's chin, and spoke up mainly when he felt that Jeanne was becoming unpleasantly terse. The stylists came with a few assistants to fetch and carry and answer phone calls in the hall, and Liz didn't bother to learn their names.

She'd lost weight from the stress of her life since Red had appeared, and from the new, much more rigorous training routines she put herself through to keep up with the new level of danger. But she was, as she was always going to be, rather straight in figure, with no nipped in, womanly hourglass waist, and her shoulders were still broad and sharp. She'd always been a bit vain over her fine-boned wrists and ankles, but her hands were more capable than slender and graceful. Her new training showed in her body, too, which was more firm and straight and muscled than the willowy, wispy young creatures one saw on the arms of powerful men at parties, who'd never had to tackle a man twice her mass or sprint away from some enemy.

Rhys wanted to show her off like that, strong and proud, and Jeanne wanted to soften her up a little, clothe her in thin disguise of artful carelessness and delicacy. Rhys wanted her to be confident and look impressive, and Jeanne thought she would be better off if those around her didn't know all she was capable of doing "until she was in the middle of doing it to them, if someone tried something." She let them argue volubly in the background while she tried a series sweaters in the mirror to see which concealed her holster best, and then came down on Jeanne's side. She'd always preferred the element of surprise.

* * *

By lunch time she was exhausted and starving and so tired of trying things on that she wanted to scream. Her objectivity over her own body was slipping and if Jeanne made many more comments about her cop posture or her inability to coordinate colors, she was going to snap. She petitioned for room service and a short intermission but was shot down by both stylists and one of the squawking assistants, who said that those things which Liz didn't keep would be returned or used by someone else and they would take no risk of food oils or crumbs.

By the time Red called her it was late afternoon, the light from the windows turning deep and blue, with the yellow hotel lights and their own reflections gleaming off the glass. Jeanne and Rhys were working through the shoes now, and choosing jewelry and scarves. Before they'd made her put on various outfits and try on overcoats and walk up and down, and then run through various defensive moves and try and get to her gun, to see which hindered her least. Rhys was a good sparring partner, she had to admit. She'd begun to see why this wardrobe acquisition couldn't have been done trooping into dozens of boutiques.

Still, she was glad to have excuse to stop and duck away, her energy and her confidence was at a low ebb. She felt sure that if they didn't take their things and go away and let her eat soon, she was going to start crying from sheer frustration. Or else start shouting and making threats. She wasn't sure which would be more humiliating. When her cellphone rang she leapt for it, and would have taken the call even if it was her phone company, but the familiar Nick's Pizza ID did a lot to improve her mood. She ducked into the hall and ran into the group of bored assistants, so she waved them into her room and shut herself out of it, to give herself some privacy.

"Lizzy," he said in place of a greeting, happy and warm, "I know it's a little early, but I wondered if you'd like to come to dinner with me? We're headed your way, and there's this wonderful little Mediterranean restaurant i've been meaning to share with you, the most fabulous stuffed flat breads this side of the Atlantic…"

"That sounds wonderful, actually, but I don't think your stylists are done with me yet."

"What, still? Are they outfitting you for two months or six?"

"I tried to tell them I'm not going to need that much stuff, but they're persistent. And Rhys pouts and wheedles and then Jeanne just rides over us both like she hasn't heard a word. They didn't even let me eat lunch earlier, even though I tried to put my foot down."

"They're there to serve you, Lizzy, not the other way around. Tell them you've had enough and you're done with them and come have dinner with me."

"I tried that but it didn't actually make an impact. And maybe they're right, you know? It's not just the clothes but how to wear them, and how to _be_ in them. It's like camouflage," she said. She'd seen him do it often enough, the theatrics, the persona, the way he wore his clothes like armour. It was much, much harder than she'd guessed. She could lie and lie well, she could make herself seem more vulnerable, or completely unobtrusive. Making herself smoother and larger and effortlessly entitled was something else. "I'm really at it," she said.

"That's because you're a generally honest person, Lizzy, which is nothing so terrible."

"It is, for people like us," she said, distressed.

"Nonsense! It's a perfectly admirable quality, and one I envy from time to time," he said, "And, since you're too nice to successfully bully Rhys and Jeanne out of the door, I suppose I'll come up and say hello. I haven't seen Jeanne since... well, a rather memorable fiasco of a costume ball three years ago. I wonder if she's forgiven me for the blood stains on her vintage Dior. I was not in full possession of my faculties at the time and didn't notice on whom I was bleeding, but she was still rather outraged."

"You'll come up?" she echoed, uncertain, his tangent of a mysterious, failed ball floating right past her, "It's pretty much the Stateroom Scene in here already, I'm not sure…"

"It'll be fine, Lizzy," he assured her brightly, "I'll come up and say hello, settle the bill, kick everybody out, and then we'll go to dinner."

She'd had this strange little idea that she would show up the next time she saw him in her new gear, all well turned out and sleek. She wanted to catch him out, startle him into being impressed with her the way he had been before that ill-fated embassy ball, and a very small handful of other times. If he saw all the gluttony and premendition in honing her disguise, it would completely cut out the surprise, the delicious reveal.

 _Oh well,_ she thought to herself, _none of this new stuff makes me look as impressive as the wedding outfit did, and he didn't even blink at that, so what does it matter?_

* * *

Red did an efficient job of prodding the assistants into action and getting them to carry away all the racks and bags and boxes of things while he and Jeanne and Rhys caught up. He was in a good mood, and smiled so sweetly at her as she let him in, with that quiet shyness he kept for her. But then he'd been swept up in talking to old friends, and exclaiming over what a mess they'd made of her hotel room.

She left them talking and slipped away to the inviolable privacy of the shower, to wash away the exertions and tensions of all that trying on and patient forbearance. It was rude, cowardly behavior and she knew it, but she was too tired and worn to deal with Jeanne and Rhys any longer, or to deal with Red in one of his broad, sociable moods.

She'd found it enthralling at first, impressive. When he was in an expansive mood he was the most vivid, compelling thing in her life, the most worldly. The most mesmeric and endlessly interesting. But then she'd begun to understand that Red was most likely to be so manically jovial, so relentlessly charming and cultured, when he felt most pressed by some threat or dogged by some gruesome secret. Now when he showed up so wound, that glittering, quick turning light in his eyes, there was a part of her that held back, a part that watched him and worried and wondered what it was that he was trying to outrun. She wished that she'd never seen through him that way, that she could just be swept along and delighted by it as she used to be. His bright mood made her apprehensive, and she was already worried enough.

When she emerged again, clean and in the giant hotel robe that covered her from neck to ankles so she didn't spare a second for self-consciousness, Jeanne and Rhys and all the rest of it was gone. She could see the formal little federal style sofa and armchair again in the dark corner of the room that had been taken over by clothing racks, and the little breakfast table by the windows had also reemerged from piles of things. She could even see some of the duvet on the bed, again, though the things that made up her false truseau were heaped there in ordered piles. Aside from some stray sheets of crushed tissue paper like fallen leaves on the plush carpet, the chaos was gone as if it had never been.

Red was still there, of course he was. He'd shed coat and hat and suit coat and managed to lounge on the sofa as it were actually comfortable, when she knew it wasn't, and seemed absorbed in the book he braced against his knee. It was the novel she'd been reading before bed, she realized. He must have been looking in her bedside drawer but she found she didn't mind. She hesitated in the doorway, watching him. The poor amber light from the wall sconces glittered gold and silver in his shorn hair, showing the well formed curve of his skull. She wanted, as she often did when he was quiet and studiously intent on something before her, to run her palm over the plush of it, just to see what it was like.

"Peace at last," she said, to catch his attention. She came and stood over him.

Red looked up at her, still abstracted. She watched his face shift as his mind turn away from where it had been and focus on her, the softness of distraction turning into something focused and familiar. The high, hard glint had left him for the moment, replaced with that heavy-lidded contentment she'd once taken for smugness. She stood still for him to observe her.

He was never shy about looking her over completely, studying her from top to toe, and yet she'd never felt uncomfortable with his scrutiny as she would have with any other man. He didn't do it to grasp at her, to take more than what was offered. And anyway she did much the same to him, with no more intent behind it than to see how he was. They just looked at each other sometimes. She was sure there was nothing wrong or leering about it, just frank curiosity.

"Lizzy," he said, after a long pause, a truer smile breaking over his face like a gradual thaw, "I've changed my mind about going out to dinner. How would you like to stay in?"

"Much better," she said, "I'm exhausted after all of that. You're friends are a lot of work, Red."

"Yes, they are, aren't they? I'm not sure if you realize how incredibly right you are. I don't think I actually know any easy people, only ones that take a great deal of effort to know."

"What about Dembe, though?" she asked, thinking how quiet and goodnatured and how fiercely loyal Dembe was.

He made a vague, amused noise and shook his head. "Especially him. You don't know him very well yet. He's a lot more work once he's decided to let you be friends with him. He's a very honest man, and he has a natural gift at reading people. It takes genuineness and trust to keep his trust in you, and for a man like me, that's a great deal of effort."

"Well," she said, and laughed at herself, already knowing the answer, "then what about me?"

"You, Lizzy, are absolutely the most work of all," he said definitely, in a tone like he was paying her a great compliment, like he was calling her terribly beautiful or vastly talented, a little awed, a little wry.

There were times that she wondered about how he had come to decide what he valued in life, in people, and in woman. Easiness and delicacy were not very high on his list, she could tell that by the people he kept near. The people he took the trouble, after everything, to try to know. For a man constantly surrounded by associates and enemies and hangers on, that number was very small.

"I wouldn't want it any other way," she told him. She took some of her own clothes from her little suitcase and retreated to get dressed.


	3. moving day 1

**I have a fair handle on the pace and breadth of this thing and this is your friendly reminder that my firmly held belief is that Slow Burn = Exquisite Payoff. Just. You know. For reference. ;)**

* * *

She met with Samar the next day, discreetly at a cafe, just two women getting expensive coffee. Samar said that Ressler was sullen and unpleasant company and she meant to send him back to DC if he didn't perk up in a few days, no matter what their orders were.

Samar, Ressler, and Aram had moved into an FBI safe house in the area to be on hand to coordinate extraction if necessary, although Red had protested vigorously that not only would the team be bored and annoyed with nothing to do for weeks on end, they would also be surplus to requirements. He trusted his own people far more in the event an immediate response was necessary, and the FBI team had a tendency to make clumsy mistakes and get noticed. Liz had secretly agreed and she hoped the team would lose interest in a week or two with nothing to do and leave Red's team to it. She knew better than to voice that opinion though, to the FBI or to Red.

"So what's it like," asked Samar with a teasing look, "playing Reddington's doting wife?"

Liz shook her head, dismissing the idea. "We're not playing anything yet, just getting ready. There will be no doting, though, I can promise you that."

"No, you're right. Reddington doesn't seem to like the submissive type. No one who actually knew him would believe in you two if you played it that way."

"What would you know about what type he prefers?"

"Don't worry, Liz, our little flirtation is long over, and was never very successful in any case."

"I didn't know that you and he— No, I didn't mean that, Samar. I just wondered how you heard anything about his past relationships. Unless it's related to a case, he seems to go out of his way to keep those things intensely private."

"I suppose so," said Samar thoughtfully, "Well, he would with you, wouldn't he?"

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Liz protested, blustering

"Liz," Samar said, giving her a look that was equal parts sympathy and disbelief, "We are none of us children in this."

Liz blushed hot and ducked her head. Samar was right, the time for pretending ignorance was long passed. "Yeah," she said, "sorry."

"I tracked Reddington down, remember. And I'm afraid I found out more about him than his preferences in neckwear. I could tell you about it sometime, if you're interested," offered Samar.

Liz looked for further teasing in Samar's face, but didn't see it. She could see it was meant a means of truce, of amends for how Samar seemed to think she knew more about Red than Liz did, in spite of being the one to whom it mattered less. She considered accepting for a moment or two, but decided it didn't seem right. She wasn't at all sure that Samar did know him better in any case, not in the ways that didn't have to do with facts and third-hand anecdotes.

"No," she said, "I want him to tell me. I want him to _want_ to tell me. Otherwise, considering the circumstances, I don't think I should know."

"Fair enough."

"I'm sorry about this, you know," she said, leaning back in her chair and moving on from the sensitive subject, "You guys are going to be bored out of your minds. This isn't even the dangerous part, and for that part you can't even follow us. I hope you brought some good books or something."

"I don't mind. It's almost like a vacation, although a particularly dull one," Samar said, "And it's not your fault, Liz. We're only here because Harold Cooper worries like a mother hen and because Ressler is even better at whining to get his way then my seven year old cousin."

"Wait, _seven year old_ Cousin?"

"My uncle got remarried," said Samar with a wicked, teasing look, "to a pretty woman twenty years his junior and produced more offspring. It's a very familiar story, I'm sure you know."

Liz scowled at her but took her point. She was about to walk into a situation where a great many people would be thinking the same sort of less than charitable thoughts about her and Red that she had just entertained about Samar's uncle. How easy it was to be cynical, she thought, when you weren't personally involved.

* * *

They were moving her to the apartment that evening. Red didn't know what to do with himself. It wasn't as though he'd never spent significant amounts of time alone with Lizzy before, but this would be entirely different. Possibly disastrously different.

There were two bedrooms in the apartment, at least. Two bedrooms and two large bathrooms, although one was meant for guests, as well as a large formal sitting room, a long, narrow dining room, a chef's kitchen, a well outfitted den-with-library, as well as a tightly turning wrought-iron stair that lead to a large, private solarium and access to a roof terrace. The solarium leaked, he'd been warned, but it was plush with enormous potted plants and hanging baskets with flowers and boasted a large glass table and comfortable rattan chairs where he'd taken breakfast that morning.

He hoped Lizzy would like it. He suspected she would. He'd pictured her there across from him half the morning, how well she would look among all that greenery, the natural light on her pale skin, her dark hair, perhaps warmed to a faint flush by an amplified beam of sunlight through the glass roof. He'd pictured her quiet and solemn as she perused the paper, or that difficult novel of hers, and then he'd realized the unlikeliness of such a thing and pictured her instead frowning at him in her interrogatory way, pinning him with her avid eyes and asking him questions in her wonderfully bold way.

Then he'd remembered that the next morning she would be there, in fact and not in fantasy, and that such imaginings were not only absurd but inappropriate. She was no sweet, abiding figment and she wouldn't thank him for the way he pictured her, wished her up in quiet moments from time to time. It seemed to him a trespass to dream of things for which he had no right to expect.

* * *

They'd had a lovely time at dinner though, the other night. She'd been tired and a little shellshocked after her day with Jeanne and Rhys, and she was a stronger person than he was for being only that, after nine hours with them. She'd been patient with him, accommodating of his strange, wistful mood that night.

She'd worn soft, pajama-like clothes and let her hair dry slowly so that it looked like he'd caught her woken and rumpled. She'd sat with him at the little table in her room, which was obviously meant for one person to take their morning coffee and not for two people to share a meal, for a long, long time after they'd finished eating and sent away the dishes because it was still more comfortable than that awful sofa. Lizzy had lounged forward, leaning one elbow lightly on the linen-covered table and fiddled with her coffee cup and her discarded napkin in such a way that her fingers brushed his hand, which also rested on the table, from time to time. He'd watched the subtle shift of her shoulders as she talked, the glossy dark hair that kept falling forward over her brow, and pretended that he was not resting his hand nearer and nearer towards hers.

They'd hashed out more small details of their cover. They'd talked out the broad strokes of their hypothetical romance like it was a battle plan, in carefully impersonal terms, at the beginning. That would be enough to hold them for the explanation of their pretend marriage. People were too fond of seeming polite and too afraid of awkwardness to pry closely into what would have every appearance of being a very seedy whirlwind romance, and wouldn't question them too closely as a couple or individually. Too-careful details would in fact do more harm than good, when it came to a natural portrayal.

However, Lizzy's background needed to be more precise. She was the oddity, and the newcomer. She was the one who would take the brunt of scrutiny, by virtue of her age and her sex, and the untarnished shine of kindness and hope in her that would set her apart. He didn't want to see that shine corroded away by the grim realities of the life they lead, though he suspected it would happen in time, but that brightness, that freshness in her would make her an oddity in his circle of affluent criminals, and would certainly occasion comment, perhaps even scorn.

"You'll be an outsider, there's nothing we can do about that. But I feel that there is a lot we can do is use it in our favor, make it a feature of your cover."

"I _can_ bluff, Red. I can play a part as well as anyone."

"Yes, Lizzy, you're quite adept, I assure you I've noticed. But you will be unknown to them no matter how you play your role, so we might as well use that to our advantage. I think it would be better for you in the long run if we allow them to underestimate you for a while."

"Jeanne said something very similar, earlier. I agreed with her, too, but given how much you're both obsessed with tricking them, I'm beginning to think less and less of these friends of your we'll be meeting."

"Good," he'd said, "They aren't people I would choose for you to know. They aren't people I would have chosen to know, either, if my my life had allowed for such luxuries. I only hope that… that you won't judge me too badly by the company I keep."

"Jesus, Red, do you really think I would?"

He'd only shrugged, not wanting to remind her that she certainly had in the past. He didn't blame her for that, though, as she was right to judge. He judged himself by that company, the way he found ways to accommodate and excuse, to do business with and humor, and he, too found himself lacking.

"You don't judge me by your opinion of Ressler, do you? Or Cooper?" she'd asked, staring at him with an earnest frown.

"I find Ressler and Cooper rather admirable, in their own way," he'd hedged.

"Red…"

"No, Lizzy. No of course I don't. You are your own person and you make your own actions. Sometimes I think you want to fit in among your FBI colleagues a little too much, but you aren't fooled by the same delusions they are. I have never judged you by their conduct."

"Well, there you are then," she'd said, smiling in quiet triumph, "You are not the same as the people you have to deal with. Give me a little credit, will you?"

They talked it over and decided to stick very close to Elizabeth's true life story, excising only her association with law enforcement. It was a fine pedigree, truly, and would suit them beautifully. She'd been the adopted child of a notorious spy who had retired from service to his country and turned notorious thief. All of this was already true. It was also already true that this spy-turned-thief had been mentor and great friend to Red. And also true that she had dabbled in both academia and her father's world, straying more and more into her study of psychology as she grew up and became more interested in stability, though she'd never turned against the nature of her father's profession.

They'd also keep the fact of her previous marriage, though, should anybody ask, she would say its dissolution came about due to her husband's infidelity. In all likelihood no one would ask, but it was a simplified version of the truth and infinitely easier to explain. Without saying so to one another, he was sure they both knew that his associates would find it easier to believe he'd been tempted by an angry, rebellious divorcee than an isolated, single academic. His reputation, as ever, cut with both edges.

"How are supposed to have met," she'd asked him, "if not through the FBI?"

"Sam," he'd said simply.

"What, he would have set us up? I don't think so," she'd said and laughed.

"If I'd known that he was sick… if I'd known earlier, I would have been to see him, spent time… I would have arranged for the best treatment… It was too late for that by the time he— but I would have, and if you'd known you would have been there, too."

"Meeting at his bedside? I don't know, Red. Isn't that kind of…?"

"I would have been there for you if I could have, Lizzy, I would have tried to make your burdens in that time easier in any way I could. For you and for Sam. And I would have been impressed with you, captivated. It's not so far outside the realm of possibility, at least. Even those that know us would find it eminently believable," he'd said. _And if I had met you then, I would have needed you,_ he thought to himself, _to show me that not every good thing was gone from the world. If I'd walked into your world then, I wouldn't have been any more able to want to want to walk out of it than I am now._

"You're right, it does sound pretty convincing," she'd softly, and met his eyes with a truly inscrutable expression on her face.

He'd withdrawn his hand after that and sat back, steering their talk to lighter things. He'd felt her attention on him and fought the urge to fidget, but before long the thick atmosphere subsided. It had grown late as they talked, the great city quieting down to it's midnight murmuring. Lizzy had drooped with tiredness but her mood had lightened. It had seemed casual enough in a little while that he didn't feel at all awkward about bustling around her room, helping her stow away all her new wardrobe in the hotel dresser so that she would have a place to sleep.

As he was about to take his leave, though, she stopped him with a quick touch of her hand on his arm. She'd peered up at him with urgent concern. He'd estimated the danger passed a little too soon.

"Are you going to be alright doing this, Red?" she'd asked him, sounding resigned more than accusatory. Her brows were drawn together and her face looked taut with avoided emotion in the low light."

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he'd said, stalling for time.

"Maybe, but… It seems like you don't seem very comfortable with the idea. I don't know. I guess it's just that lately I've been getting the feeling that you don't like me as much as you used to." she'd said and looked down, away, crossed her arms like she was protecting herself against him.

He'd felt winded, as though she'd hit him, as though he couldn't quite make sense of the words she'd just said. He'd shaken his head blankly, at a loss. "I don't understand this, Lizzy… How did you come to this conclusion?"

"I don't know, it's just a sense I get. You seem to tense up around me lately, it's been happening more and more. Sometimes it's like you're looking for the escape hatch to the conversation, not just about the past. I'm used to that. This is different. You did it just tonight. And then there was yesterday…" she'd trailed off, her mouth all pinched and unhappy.

"Yesterday?"

She'd just shrugged, a sharp, angry gesture and shifted impatiently on her feet. He'd wanted to put his arms around her, smooth away the tension between her shoulder-blades, hold her till she melted into him with a soft sigh. He didn't. He'd looked up at the hotel ceiling until the urge dissipated.

He'd been cold to her the day before and he knew it. She'd been staggeringly beautiful in her wedding gown, and he'd felt so in awe he been hardly able look at her. He'd had to glance at her carefully and fleetingly to keep his composure, to keep breathing, to not feel that he was in some way breaking their trust. It was absolutely impossible to tell her so.

"You are _infinitely_ precious to me, Lizzy," he'd said haltingly, "Please don't doubt that."

"That's not quite the same thing, though, is it," she'd said, unimpressed.

"We're going to be fine," he'd said, managing a painful smile, "I am perfectly able and willing to continue, I promise you, Lizzy."

She'd looked skeptical, but she'd nodded her acquiescence. She'd told him that, as they'd come this far, they might as well continue. She'd bid him goodnight with a sad smile that had made his heart ache and let the door close between them.

* * *

He hadn't seen her in two days, as he oversaw the final touches on the penthouse and put out feelers to old acquaintances who would be vital to their plan. It had been a painful, necessary break from her company, time to settle his thoughts away from her sweet, disruptive influence.

Now she was going to be moving in with him, in less than an hour. The apartment was ready. Her room was ready, her bedside table set with fresh flowers. The kitchen was stocked, and his menu for the night planned. He was not ready, however. But as he couldn't imagine that he ever could be, he resigned himself to his nerves.

He wasn't sure whether he would show her their wedding pictures specifically, in their pride of place on the mantle, or let her notice or not as she chose. The'd come out beautifully. He'd been taken aback when he saw them, not by how they'd looked but by how real the illusion seemed. The photographs were like artefacts from a different reality, like mementos from a life that _someone_ had lead, even if it hadn't been him.

He wondered what she would think when she saw them. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to see her face when she did. It would likely tell him things he wasn't sure he wanted to know.


	4. moving day 2

The apartment was, of course, entirely beautiful in person, light and clean and charming. It was spacious, but not so much so that she and Red would be roaming around lost in a show of conspicuous wealth. She was impressed, and intimidated even though she longed not to be. She'd arrived in a new coat over her own comfortable clothes, bearing the fine new luggage that Red had sent over for the purpose that morning, her own small wheeled bag not being sufficient for all her new wardrobe.

Red was the one to open the door, to show her around, help her carry things to her room for the duration. They would be living alone without any of his retinue, he'd explained, though both Baz and Dembe were nearby if they should be needed. Neither of them expected overt danger at that early juncture, but it paid to be insured against the unknown. Red thought she would be more comfortable without any less familiar third party in their midst, and in some practical ways she agreed.

She had honestly expected, though, that Dembe would be staying with them. Perhaps because he and Red did seem to room together often enough. Perhaps because she had simply counted on that buffer, that comfort of a third person in the vicinity should things between herself and Red once again turn sour. Not that Dembe had ever made it his business to get embroiled in the conflicts between her and Red, much the way that a sane man doesn't put himself in the middle of a fight between two alley cats.

Red was on his best, most gracious behavior, his manner anxious and eager to please. He kept putting out his hand to lightly touch her elbow and then taking it away again, checking and rechecking that she was pleased by the setting for their little play, like a nervous young suitor who was half-sure of his lady's indifference. When they circled back to where they'd started her tour, just inside the library-study, he gave her a sly grin and led her around a massive bookcase and showed her an ornate wrought iron spiral stair.

"After you, Lizzy," he said, "I promise you it's worth the climb."

And so she walked up a stair in a city apartment, and climbed into a jungle, humid and verdant and thick with the resinous, mineral smells of plants and damp soil. A greenhouse, she thought. Or a conservatory, or another of those old words for an expansive room made of glass and metal, built so the monied genteel could grow their beautiful, exotic plants in a cold, inhospitable climate. Oh Red, she thought, affectionate tears pricking her eyes, Of course. And which of us is meant to be the rare, tropical cutting, transplanted and needing to be sheltered from an unwelcoming ground? It could be either of us.

She stood on the top step gripping the round iron finial and snuffled absurdly with an excess of sentiment.

"Will you proceed, Lizzy?" called Red brightly from somewhere below, "Or shall I spend the afternoon half-way up the stairs, enjoying this most excellent view of your calves?"

She laughed, as he'd meant her to, she supposed, and ventured off to explore the greenhouse. It wasn't an infinite space, but she guessed it covered a significant portion of the same square footage as the apartment below. There was the head of the spiral stair in the back corner, neatly fenced off with a wrought iron railing to keep people from tripping over it unawares, a central seating area with a big round table under the airy peak of the roof in a large clearing among the massive potted palms and philodendrons and planters of anthuriums and other large, vibrant tropical plants she didn't know. Along one glass wall there was a long, troughed potting table complete with bags of soil and little seedlings - she wondered what had become of the gardener who had seemingly left behind all their work. At the opposite end of the conservatory from the stairwell, buffered by more palms and feathery pampas grasses, was another small seating area made up of a brown wicker sofa with a white canvas cushion and a companionable upholstered arm chair that looked like it had been put out from the sitting room below at some point when chintzy florals were in vogue and never brought back down. Beside this little grouping was a leaded glass door leading to a modestly sized roof deck.

She looked between Red, who trailed discreetly behind her, and the obviously newly installed chain and deadbolt on the otherwise delicate and patinaed glass and iron door. "Expecting robbery by acrobats, are we?" She asked, teasing.

He shrugged and looked sheepish. "I've made use of an...aerial entrance to make myself at home where I wasn't wanted, so find it expedient to assume others are capable of the same tactics."

"An aerial entrance?"

"Let's just say," he said, with a wry twist to his mouth, "that dangling on a rappelling line from a helicopter leaves one feeling very aware of one's smallness and fragility, especially when the person in charge of said helicopter has absolutely no clue what they're doing, and leave it there. It's a story to quite spoil your appetite. Or mine I should say, considering…" he shook his head, and the brightened. "Speaking of which, I've laid on a nice spread for lunch if you want to come down? Or would you like to see the terrace first?"

"I...no, let's go down. I'd rather see it when that story you just almost told me isn't fresh in my mind."

* * *

Red had given her the larger of the two rooms, the one with the good view and the attached bath and spacious dressing room. She had protested when she realized, but his face had taken on that firm, implacable look, and she'd known that to insist would be to begin their tenure on a sniping argument over something largely meaningless. She'd accepted instead, with as much gratitude as she could muster considering that she felt slighted in some obscure way.

The hugely wide bed looked like a sentence to sleeplessness, no matter how nicely it was made up with an edifice of pillows and crisp sheets. She'd grown accustomed to the stiff, miserable double bed at the motel back in DC, and the excessive comfort of the hotel bed of the last few days had thrown her into a spate of unsettled night watchfulness, and she expected this one would be much the same.

She'd retreated after lunch to open up the heavy suitcases and begin unpacking, but found herself sitting, lost in thought. The appartment was high enough above the city that the street noise was muted to a dull rush or hum in the background, something like the sea-sound of pulsing blood when holding a shell to your ear. The decor of the room was lovely, light and neutral but not characterless, the air fresh and sweet. With the door of the palatial room closed, she was cut off even from Red's quiet movements. She would be comfortable here, after a fashion, but perhaps a little lonely.

* * *

Red had promised to cook dinner, saying that they would have plenty of dining out in the near future and that they might enjoy a quiet night in while they still could. She knew her own cooking skills were limited, but she was a decent sous chef, so she drifted into the kitchen to find him. She wanted the company as much as anything. Red had been careful and reticent with her all afternoon, and she hoped that distraction would help to return them to normal.

The kitchen was large and well appointed, with pale wood cabinets and dark marble counters and a huge butcher block island with a hanging garden of copper pots above it. It was warmly lit and not over-bright, but it was also the most modern of all the rooms in the apartment, the most clean and unfussy. Red was there, just as she'd expected, elbow deep in dinner preparations and moving around the space with ease. He looked up when she came in and smiled.

"Anything I can do?" She asked, leaning against the island across from him.

"How are you at peeling apples?"

"I do alright," she said, "What are we having?"

"Apple and shallot stuffed pork tenderloin, autumn salad, and pilaf with golden raisins. If you like raisins, that is? It can just as easily be made without," he asked with some concern, as though he were raising some far more grave subject than dried grapes.

She smiled, charmed and indulgent. "Raisins in the pilaf is fine. It all sounds like an awful lot of work though, for a casual dinner in. Just the two of us tonight, isn't it? Not Bon Appetit Magazine or something, right?"

"Lizzy, really. It's hardly haute cuisine, just a nice little meal for two. And should hardly take any time. If you help me peel and chop the apples, I'll show you how to how to butterfly the roast," he said, and got out a second cutting board and a second paring knife from the block, setting up a space beside him, "I believe you'll like the part where you firmly pound the butterflied roast out to an even thickness with a blunt object."

She scowled in protest, and then laughed. "You're probably right," she said and nudged his shoulder with hers as she went to stand beside him.

Red was as adept in the kitchen as he was at everything else, even in a space that wasn't his, even as he explored the tools of this particular kitchen for the first time. He approached everything with deliberation and attention to detail, hefting more than one skillet from the rack before selecting one, assessing the freshness of each spice from the cupboard before an unmeasured but precise amount. His skills with a knife were easy and practiced, finishing his apple in half the time she did, and moving on to other tasks. He stopped, though, for a minute and watched her steady, slow progress, as though remembering something or assessing her. He corrected her grip as he moved on, warning her not to rest her index finger along the blunt back of the blade, but she didn't really think that's what had preoccupied him.

As he cooked, Red narrated for her, making her feel involved though in truth she did little more than trail beside him around the kitchen once the paring knives were put aside. She watched him cook and he glanced and glanced at her watching with curious, hopeful eyes, as though to say, _like this, see?_ As though to check that she was following along, that she was sharing in and enjoying this pastime he so loved.

She was following, she did enjoy, she did learn. She learned, by leaning close at Red's elbow, to bloom certain spices in oil after the apples and onions had wilted down, a warm, pungent froth in the bottom of the pan, sizzling and subsiding. She learned, by watching his deft fingers, to tie the pink, delicate stuffed roast together with butcher's string tied in neat surgeon's knots before setting it into it's roasting pan. She learned that toasting dry rice with butter in the sauce pan before beginning the pilaf made the kitchen smell like her childhood in an undefinable and curiously touching way.

She learned that Red hummed softly to himself as he cooked, when he was absorbed and forgot himself and her. She learned that Red and she, with their companionable working in quiet focus, could make this task, too, feel easy and right.

She learned that her former, her never-was husband had never really tried to teach her to cook, though he'd pretended to. What he'd done was the crude, tasteless pantomime of this, full of teasing and flirting, and ending each time with a dismissal to go have a glass of wine in the other room while he took care of it. There had been no companionship in that, and no real fun either. Always only faint stirring of dissatisfaction in place of the closeness with Tom she had expected.

It was a relief, almost, to find that she hadn't been the only doing something wrong. That it had been only one more thing that had been stacked against her without her realizing.

* * *

The dinner itself, though delicious, was almost an anticlimax. They sat in the dining room, at one end of the long table with it's white damask cloth, across from each other. The room was high and narrow and dim, now that night had fallen outside of the pair of high, narrow windows, the dated chandelier over their heads casting only a gloomy amber light. Red had lit the candles on the table, squat cream votives on fussy silver dishes whose merry little flames filled the air with the scent of hot beeswax, and then had smiled at her, the wryest, most knowing expression - as though they too were enacting a kind of parody, but one they where they were both in on the joke.

She wasn't sure though. She wasn't entirely sure what the joke was, or if there was one at all. She and Red looked at each other over their plates, over the steady candlelight. As she spoke with him and watched his face, bright and alive and vivid against the dowdy backdrop of dull grasscloth and wood panelling, as his rich, far-reaching voice made the foreign space familiar, she felt that it was all too serious. She keenly felt her heart beating hard and insistent in the reverberating space behind her breastbone, an unsettling counterpoint of apprehension and wonder.

Back in the kitchen, the bright and informal kitchen - theirs now, she thought - it was easier. The atmosphere was lighter. Digging through the cupboards for storage dishes and plastic wrap like they were looking for clues, talking over the rush of hot water the waft of dish soap, leaning each with a hip on the counter by the sink as they washed up. It wasn't exactly familiar territory for her time with Red, but then again it didn't feel so far removed from comfortable patterns of their routine.

"Leave the roaster to soak," he advised, once their plates and cutlery and the small pans stood in the drainboard, "it can wait. Would you like another glass of wine, perhaps, or…?"

She shook her head and folded the damp dishtowel restlessly in her hands. She felt Red looking at her still, questioning and intense. It wasn't as though his attention to her had grown sharper, or more insistent as the day wore on, it was just that it hadn't lessened. He hadn't grown bored and moved off to pay attention to something, someone else. She wasn't used to it.

"I know," he said, and guided her over with a light and fleeting touch on her back, so that they were staring into the blue light of the freezer, trying to decide if they had room for one of the flavors of handmade ice cream stored there in little white cartons.

"Lemon and lavender, strawberry-pistachio or simple chocolate," he read from the box tops, "they're from a small, wildly popular modern soda shop run by a friend of mine. Well, a kind of a friend. I had him send over his most popular flavors."

"I don't know," she said, half-teasing, "that whole new wardrobe, you know. It would probably be good to try not to outgrow it in the first week."

"Just a taste," he urged, with boyish longing, reaching in the drawer for a pair of small silver spoons.

"Just a taste," she agreed.

* * *

As she lay in her high, soft bed, as decadent and sleepless as she had feared, she thought of that again. This whole project, this charade was like that, just a taste, just a brief indulgence of something sweet and tempting. Something that you never really wanted in quantity, you only thought you did, it only seemed like you wanted more and more but really you knew it would leave you ill or unhappy or unfulfilled. She was a grown up, she knew better, she was sure of it.

 _Weeks,_ she thought to herself, though, an internal wail like a warning, like a promise, _weeks and weeks of this._


	5. first date

_Author's Notes: 2 nervous breakdowns, a regime change, and the full destruction of TBL canon later, I'm continuing this._

 _I still consider this story canon compliant, with exceptions for a Tom-ectomy, because even though they started writing a different show with a new canon in the back half of S3, the first seasons do still exist. Those first seasons, where Red and Liz were never meant to be related, and Liz still had a personality, integrity and an intellect, are still well worth playing around with._

* * *

She did sleep after all, eventually and deeply the way she had not in some time. She woke late in the morning, with the pale gold of the autumn sun lighting her room and picking out with bright patches the white ridges and valleys of the bedclothes. She was groggy and heavy with sleep and in some inexplicable way embarrassed by her lingering sloth.

The big pale bathroom and it's cream and rose dressing room seemed this morning to be a blessing, sparing her an awkward, pajamed dash through the hallways between her room and the shower and back again. She supposed Red had thought of that all along. She took her time over the new clothes hanging on the closet rods, trying to recall Jeanne's instructions.

"Are you alright?" Asked Red as their quiet breakfast drew to a close.

He had lead her up to the conservatory when she appeared at last from her room, carrying a laden tray. Toast, eggs and sliced melon and fresh brewed coffee he'd served her, which was a relief as heavy elaborate fair in the morning had never appealed to her and she worried he'd be a practicing gourmand at all hours of the day. He hadn't spilled a drop of coffee or rattled a dish on the climb, much to her bleary-eyed amazement.

"Yes," she said, confused.

"Are you sure? You aren't perhaps ill, or injured, or uncomfortable in some way?"

"No, Red, whatever you're driving at, I'm fine."

"I'm glad to hear it. It's just that you're moving as carefully as a person with a rib injury and I was beginning worry."

"Oh. Well. I'm being careful. The new clothes. Most of them came from Jeane and Rhys with the tags still on and I made the mistake of looking at some of them before cutting them off."

"Ah."

"I've never worn this much money in my life and it's kind of freaking me out. How do you people even justify it? It's insane!"

"Perhaps," he agreed with genial patience, "It is necessary, however, and it's no hardship to provide you with whatever you need."

"I understand the need, Red. This isn't my first rodeo. I'm just not comfortable yet."

"You'll get there in time. Just look at me, you would never be able to tell that I would far rather spend my days in comfortable old clothes on my own piece of wilderness somewhere."

She scoffed lightly and laughed. "You liar. Maybe you think that, but you're as vain as a cat. You maybe forget that I've been to the tailor's with you, I've seen the truth."

"Well. I suppose you may have a point," he said primly, "Possibly."

"Anyway, you've have plenty of time to adjust to this stuff. This is just my first day."

"I understand, Lizzy, truly I do, I just think you'll have a better time if you try to relax. But don't worry, we don't have anything of much consequence until Margareta Paulson's brunch thing in two days. She wants to size you up, I'm sure, but once you're known to her, you'll be known to everyone in the region with the right contacts. She's close friends with Wallis's sister in law."

"Oh, two _whole_ days to readjust my body language. Alright then."

"Exactly," he said, seemingly missing her sarcasm, "and knowing you, Lizzy, I'm sure you could manage it in half the time if need be. There's nothing to worry about."

* * *

He changed his tune, however, after dinner. He'd taken her out to one of his favourite restaurants, a place where he was known by the owner because of an exchange of favours. It was to be a nice night out just the two of them, a low pressure evening, but at the same time it was a part of his usual circuit in the city - a definite signal that Red the business man, Red the connection maker, Red the loved and feared was back in town.

Liz wore one of her new, simple but perfectly cut dresses, this one black crepe that made her feel like she was a little hat with a black veil away from appearing in a noir film. Red wore his dark blue suit, which she'd always been found of, the way it set off his golden and pink complexion so nicely. Yet she found herself thinking once again how it seemed that she was dressing up in costume whereas he was just himself, and not treating her with any more than the usual, casual decorousness and presumption that he always did. It was her job to get into the role, it was true, but she was already feeling the strain of the charade before it had really begun while Red seemingly didn't have to expend any effort.

This sense of imbalance was perhaps a sign of how deeply, awfully wrong their nice quiet dinner was going to go.

It was awkward. It was so painfully awkward that she was frustrated and upset to the brink of despair, and she couldn't seem to wake up and make it right.

She had never been afraid of Red, not even when he had been let out of his cage and presented in ceremonial manacles. She had never even been nervous of him, nor shy nor cowed by his staggering intellect or his ability to parse a man through straight to his soul with quick sizing up and a few well-aimed phrases. Angry, yes, occasionally, and sometimes to rageful to a point that terrified her, beyond all reason, the way she'd never been with anyone before. She had also been charmed at times, a sweet, heady mix of amusement and affection that crept up on her from time to time, which did her no harm, and at times had pitied him, which sometimes did. But she had never been stricken with giddy uncertainty and confusion the way she was that night.

Then again she had never been out with that particular Red before. She knew the Red of work and plans, the one who treated her with a casual, friendly intimacy and brusque respect. She was used to the Red who made digs at the FBI and her institutional thinking, and who told slightly off-color stories about his associates without a second thought.

The man who took her to dinner was the same, the same poise and grace and had the same dark humour, the same rolling voice - yet he was not the same at all. This Red leaned into her space, lead her along with knowing touches, gazed at her with heavy-lidded steadiness, not leering but certainly with the seeking magnetism of fresh courtship that had yet to fade to familiarity. This Red was attentive, solicitous, even proprietary. He focused all his attention on her in a way that felt like a physical weight pressing down on her. She'd seen the paler shades of this attentive lover before in Red, of course, but somehow, in that restaurant, in that dress, with no immediate takedown or mission to discuss, or ear pieces, or team listening in, his attention felt wholly different. In the face of it she froze, in a way that she hadn't since she was a teenager playing for real stakes for the first time, her heart pounding hard in her chest, her ears muffled up with cotton.

She was the least receptive audience for his charm there perhaps had ever been, and she was alarmed by it, by the way her instinct simply didn't kick in. She could sense Red's confusion and then his frustration at her unresponsiveness begin to shift his demeanor, and even so she couldn't climb out of her morass of panic.

And then something worse happened. Red's attention shifted away from her, the electric charge in his attention faded, and instead of being relieved, Liz felt only a ringing hollowness. Then, to her horror, before she could collect herself enough to try to explain to Red, he shifted that charm and attention to their waitress. Not just for a few moments, but for the rest of the meal, so that the beautiful young server lingered by their table, flushed, delighted and basking in Red's doting, while Liz sat and fumed.

* * *

She waited until they were situated comfortably in the town car before saying anything. She thought she'd gotten a hold on her temper and regained her calm, but when she spoke, her voice was hard as steel.

"If we were really married, you know, I wouldn't let you flirt with the waitress," she said, trying for droll, but it went wrong, biting.

"I wasn't flirting with her, Lizzy, I was taking an interest. There's a small but vital difference."

"In intent, maybe. But you saw as well as I did how charmed she was. If I wasn't sitting there she would have offered you her number."

"I go to that restaurant regularly and alone, and she hasn't yet. It's not as though I go around propositioning vulnerable young people, for god's sake," said Red, seeming on the verge of taking offence, "Suzanne is supporting herself through grad school, a promising young woman who deserves to be treated like a person, and I'm a solitary old man who likes to hear about the lives of others."

"Don't you see how ridiculous it makes us both look when you're 'taking an interest' in pretty waitresses while you're out with me? What will people think? I thought we only went there tonight to be seen _as a couple_ and then you paid way more attention to _Suzanne_ than you did to me," she said in a steadily rising voice and then sighed and reined herself in. She knew that she was being ridiculous, and that her own behavior had been far from faultless during their outing, but her temper was roused to biting. She stilled herself and tried again, slowly. "I just think that when you're out with me, you limit your _interest_ to me, at least while we're playing this charade."

"I _did try_ to take an interest in you, Lizzy. I'm not sure how you failed to notice," he snapped, "I tried through drinks at the bar, and through the appetizers and part of the entree. I was as interested and charming as I know how to be, and you just _sat_ there like you couldn't even hear me. After a certain point I gave up and decided to pay attention to Janice instead because she actually _enjoys_ my conversation and it would give any observers an explanation for why you couldn't seem to stand the sight of me."

"Oh."

"Yes, 'oh,' indeed. What the hell happened, Lizzy? Am I such poor company to you? Did I do something to upset you recently that you haven't mentioned?"

"No. No. And I did notice you trying, okay? Oh god, did I notice. I don't understand what happened, I just… froze. I couldn't get into the role, I couldn't even _think_. I don't know why," she said, fighting the urge to bury her face in her hands and hide. Her cheeks were uncomfortably hot. "You don't…. You don't usually act that way with me. It threw me."

"Yes, it obviously did," said Red sharply. Liz wondered if his feelings were hurt.

She laughed bitterly, bewildered at herself and wishing that she hadn't spoiled what had seemed to easy and promising the day before. She leaned back against the car seat, avoiding his gaze. "You know I can play a roll. I've even played this role before, though it's been a long time. Maybe it's the premeditation. Maybe it's the change in context. You know, I think I would've actually had an easier time if we were strangers."

"We aren't strangers, Elizabeth. I am deeply sorry that I… apparently alarm you, but there is no way in the world we can go back to being strangers, now." Red's voice was thick with frustration. He shifted restlessly and seemed filled with pent up energy, the plush cabin was brimming with it. "Is this going to be possible for you? It's not too late to call it off if you need to. Be honest with me, though, because very soon it will be."

"No, Red. I can do it. The dossier is too important. And I _was_ figuring it out, but then you decided that our waitress was more interesting," she said, and then held her hands up, warding off his protest, "And yeah, I get why you did that. You were working the room, I get it. But my point is that you can trust me. I haven't had stage fright like that since my first grift. I think I'm just out of practice, that's all."

"Alright, Lizzy. I do trust you. And I assure you I will not come on so strongly in the future. We'll... Find a balance, with practice." he said, carefully, with precise patience, "I am sincerely sorry to have unnerved you."

"I know, Red. Let's just try to put it behind us, okay?"

Red lapsed into silence, and Liz assumed that he was willing to take her at her word and move on. She watched the city go by in silence, feeling heavy and clammy with fallen hopes and lingering embarrassment. Even now she couldn't understand why she'd reacted so badly. What was worse was that there had been a part of her that had been wishing to be swept off her feet, aching to play pretend at the great romance, like a child playing house. But it was Red, her partner, her protector, despite the irony of it, the person in her life she trusted most, and when he had stepped into that role of dark, dashing charmer, everything suddenly felt unsettling and unsafe.

They were nearing the penthouse building when Red spoke up again.

"If you'll excuse the personal intrusion, Lizzy… have you been on any dates since the dissolution of your marriage?" he asked, very gently.

What a kind euphemism, she thought, 'dissolution,' as though it had simply faded and been cast aside in an ordinary way. "I've been a little busy, actually," she said, sarcastic but not upset, "You see, I've had these criminal masterminds to deal with. What's that got to do with anything? I'm not being thrown off by trying to be faithful to anyone, if that's what you're thinking."

"No. No. More along the lines of… Lizzy, was tonight the first date you've been on since you dated Tom?"

Liz sat in stunned silence as the world seemed to pitch and shift in focus. She wanted to be flippant and brush him off, tell him that a planned appearance in a con was not a date, but she was too fixed with awful realization. She could only breathe slowly for a few moments as she stared with utmost blind concentration at the sidewalks and streetlights out the window, her eyes blurring briefly. Oh, she thought with a kind of fatalistic abstraction, right. Funny how I didn't even think of him. He'd been a charmer, too of course. Made her feel like the only worthy girl in the world while they were seeing each other, and just look where that had left her. She suddenly, desperately wanted a drink and a shower and to be shut up in her lovely, serene, borrowed room.

"I guess I haven't," she said at last, after a few steadying breaths. She looked away from the window, acknowledging him but not quite meeting his gaze. "Odd how I didn't make the connection. I guess that's… that could be…"

"Lizzy, please," said Red in a low and urgent undertone. He reached out and touched her bare forearm, a brief press of his soft fingers, and then withdrew. "Please believe that I am not a threat to you. I won't press you with unwanted attention. Nothing that might happen in this, this interlude undercover, or any other time, will be used against you. Do you understand?"

"I know you're not him, okay?" she said, not unkindly but feeling too delicate in the force of his reassurance. "Look. I got spooked, it was embarrassing. But it's done and I'm exhausted, so can we please just forget it? We'll do better next dry run."

Two days, she thought, as the driver pulled up beside their building at last, two days to bury three years of baggage and shed her nerves because then the dress rehearsals would be over. Red rested his hand on her back as he led her inside, his manner offhand again, but concerned. She looked over at his inscrutable expression, and wondered.


End file.
